Electronic Media

Who We Are

The purpose of the Electronic Media Group is twofold: (1) to preserve electronic art, electronic-based cultural materials, and tools of their creation; and (2) to provide a means for conservators and related professionals to develop and maintain knowledge of relevant new media and emerging technologies. Areas of interest include: preservation of media and art in formats such as audio, film, slides, video, kinetic art, light art, installations, interactive installations, born-digital, and web-based; creation and maintenance of digital archives; digital reformatting for preservation of and access to collection materials; digital imaging in conservation documentation; preservation and conservation of digital prints; documentation and conservation of electronic playback equipment and computer software and hardware.

What We Do

Annual Meeting

The group concentrates its efforts on programming at AIC’s Annual Meeting. Programming sometimes corresponds with overall meeting theme, sometimes concentrates on a special theme and frequently includes collaborative efforts with other specialty groups. Topics covered include collections management, treatments, updates on research, disaster recovery, research and analysis, case studies, techniques, and other issues. The program is usually a full day or more of paper presentations, panel discussions, tips sessions, workshops, as well as a business meeting and social events. Program content is then sometimes assembled into publications and resources.

Specialty groups maintain listservs, which are valuable forums where colleagues with similar interests and experience can share and exchange ideas and practical information, facilitate open discussion, disseminate group-related news, questions, job postings, announcements, comments of interest, and general information. Listservs are closed lists. Subscription to them is benefit of membership in the specialty group. All new members of the group are automatically subscribed to the list. To unsubscribe, contact the listserv moderator. All messages are archived and are searchable.

Publications and Resources

Specialty groups prepare topic-based publications, typically a collection of concepts presented at the AIC Annual Meeting turned into long-form articles. While not peer-reviewed, these postprints present a wealth of information about current topics in conservation as well as insight into conservation treatments. They also produce publications and resources that range from catalogs of conservation treatments and techniques, to conservation wikis, and to various special topic publications and resources. Electronic and print versions of past and current publications are usually available in the store, either free or for a fee.

Education

Supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, EMG started TechFocus, a series of workshops on technical issues in the preservation and presentation of electronic art. The series acknowledges the 10th anniversary of the groundbreaking TechArchaeology symposium held at SFMOMA.